Recently Egypt hosted most awaited Africa Forum 2018 at Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. The two-day event was organized by the Egyptian government through the Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Regional Investment Agency (RIA), with the participation of more than 3,000 African entrepreneurs from over 55 countries. Besides that, several international financial institutions were represented at the Forum, through key figures such as Sir Suma Chakrabarti, President of The European Bank for Reconstruction, Philippe Le Hourerou, CEO of the IFC, and Akinwumi Adesina, President of African Development Bank.

During the gathering, Egypt signed agreements worth US$ 1.9 billion which includedthe forging of "strategic partnerships" to invest in Egypt's infrastructure, information technology, renewable energy, and foster entrepreneurship and private sector development in the country. This is in addition to a number of other key agreements worth US$ 1.6 billion that were signed by the participants at the Forum.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took part in "Young Entrepreneurs Day Presidential Dialogue", where he delivered a speech with the attendance of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki, President of Rwanda Paul Kagame, and Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed.

"Egypt has come a long way in economic and social reform, structural reforms in various sectors, and the creation of a more attractive environment for domestic and foreign investment. These reforms have contributed to improving Egypt's economic indicators and credit ratings," said el-Sisi. He further added, "Our meeting this year comes at a time when we are all looking for further regional integration and facilitating intra-regional trade, especially after the African Union launched the Free Trade Area (CTA) during the summit held in Nouakchott in March 2018".

The key takeaways includes el-Sisi's call for establishing the first regional entrepreneurship hub in Egypt, as well as the construction of Cairo-Cape Town highway. He also mentioned Egypt's keen interest to increase its investments in Africa, which increased by US$ 1.2 billion in 2018 to reach $10.2 billion while African investments into Egypt, Africa's largest economy, reached US$ 2.8 billion in the same period. Furthermore, He also announced an initiative aimed to train 10,000 young Africans as software and game developers over the next three years.

With reporting by Egyptian Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation, Egypt State Information Service, and Reuters